This week the ever-curious Kim Handysides has asked us to share the story of our first kiss. Sadly, I can't fulfill Sarah Hegger's wish that mine is a better experience than hers. No my friends, I think it's worse. Oh my. There are some things best forgotten, as far as I'm concerned. But in the interest of sharing, I'm going to bite the bullet and relive that experience.
Forgive me for not being super creative in my telling this week but with a toddler home and lunch to prepare, there's not a whole lot of time to be creative. So here's the truth, in all its unromantic glory.
I was in grade nine and had the world's biggest crush on a "bad boy." You know what it's like when you're a teen. The adults say "bad boy" but all you see is the "heart of gold". Ahhh, fourteen-year-old blinders. What a terrible thing you are.
My bad boy lived around the bay, which is what those of us who grew up in St. John's called any place that wasn't. My grandmother was from there and I often spent my weekends and summers hanging out with my cousins. Now the population of this town is maybe 300. And before I could date anyone, I'd have to ensure that I wasn't related to them. So while in retrospect, this guy wasn't prime boyfriend material, he had one big positive going for him. He wasn't a distant relative.
So when I found myself alone with him at the back of the school, the moon shining bright, my braces barely visible in the darkness, all of my teenage hormones were jittery in anticipation of kissing this boy. He was sixteen, the object of desire for many a girl, and to me, resembled Bruce Springsteen. (Remember those blinders I told you about? Clearly they were messing with my mind.). Regardless, at that moment, on a cool November Newfoundland night when you could see your breath and frost was thick in the air, I had my first kiss.
In my mind it was going to be spectacular and romantic. By now I'd watched enough movies and read enough teen romances to expect knee-popping, heart-soaring instant love and chemistry. In reality, it was wet. Wet and loud. Almost as if a frog was trying to swallow my head. It just wouldn't end. The too thick tongue. The over-abundance of lip chewing. And above all else, the noise. And still, I kept kissing him. Because he was cute. And I was young and stupid. And also, hind-sight is 20/20. I hadn't kissed any good kissers yet to know that this was terrible. And it would be almost two years before I actually had a good kiss.
There you have it. Blech. As far as first kiss stories go, this was a case of kissing the frog that never turned into a prince.
Let me help you get this image out of your mind. Hop over to Leslie Hatchel's blog and we'll all hope there's something much more romantic and far less sloppy in her tale!